For me it’s the notification light you used to find on older phones, was particularly good to know if your phone was charged without picking it up

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Kinda surprised that no one has mentioned the FM tuner. For reasons I never really understood, a lot of companies continued to build the hardware into phones but then wall it off with firmware.

    My first MP3 player had one, my TV had one, there were even watches and lots of other devices that had one. People still listen to radio, so why don’t they give us a tuner?

    • I_Miss_Daniel@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Mostly because they needed a wired headset to act as the FM antenna since it needs a decent length to capture FM compared to the much higher UHF and GHz frequencies that the mobile network uses.

    • CosmicTurtle@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Are you sure the hardware is still there? I only ask because given the number of hackers out there, I’m surprised someone hasn’t come out with a patch or something to make it more ubiquitous.

      • ArbiterXero@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        A lot of it isn’t there anymore….

        But because it was a hardware thing, the patch would involve rooting your phone, something most people won’t do.

      • Aux@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It’s not strictly there as a separate feature. Modern radio chips in phones are universal programmable radios, they can catch and process any wavelengths if you install correct code into them and plug a correct antenna. The same radio chip processes your 5G, Bluetooth, WiFi and everything else.

        What phones are missing are FM antennas and radio firmware with FM support. This FM support is a paid feature for phone makers, so they don’t add it.

      • FerbFletcher@reddthat.com
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        11 months ago

        i think I recall that the Bluetooth hardware is essentially an FM tuner. Just needed a wired headphone to use as an antenna. My Moto Stylus 2022 still has it.